The Adam A500 is the first new cabin-class twin to be certified in years. The pressurized all-composite airframe can seat as many as six. The first customer delivery occurred in November 2005, and Adam intends to deliver as many as six aircraft per month.

There has always been some debate about the justification for piston twins. True, the second engine may get you home if one mill quits, but standard asymmetric-thrust multis haven't exactly enjoyed a sterling safety record. In too many instances, directional control is so tenuous and single-engine performance so marginal that a safe landing on one engine demands that the pilot be flying a perfect airplane and be doing absolutely everything right.

Rick Adam's A500 is the first corporate piston twin to be certified in 20 years, and in case you hadn't noticed, it doesn't employ asymmetric thrust. The airplane's inline engine configuration breaks with tradition and sets the A500 apart from the vast majority of what has come before. Yes, there was the near-500 mph, experimental, WWII German Dornier 335 fighter, developed too late to enter the war; the semi-successful family of Cessna model 336/337 Skymasters (now you know where the Skymasters' model numbers come from); Burt Rutan's Defiant and round-the-world Voyager; and a few other less notable attempts at huff 'n puff designs.

But twins have traditionally utilized asymmetric thrust, mounting their engines on the wings to improve crashworthiness, ease fuel delivery and isolate noise and vibration from the cabin. The last pressurized, piston corporate twin of any description that was granted a type certificate from the FAA was the Piper Mojave, essentially a piston-powered Cheyenne I.

So what makes George F. "Rick" Adam Jr. think he can produce and sell a pressurized multi in a 21st-century general-aviation market that's producing only about a fifth of the units it was building when the type disappeared? The Cessna 340/414/421, Beech Duke/P-Baron and Piper Mojave/Aerostar 700P all expired in the mid-1980s, not because there were any glaring deficits in the designs, but because the market had dwindled to a precious few. Beech sold only 16 Dukes in the last year of production, and Cessna delivered a mere 18 Chancellors and Golden Eagles in all of model year 1985. What has changed in 20 years?
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Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0800The race to bring the first of the very light jets to certification is turning final, And the upstart from Denver is looking like it may be the new leader to the finish line The last rush of specific aircraft types came in the late 1970s when Piper, Beech and Grumman-American all fielded light-light twins—the Seminole, Duchess and Cougar, respectively. At the time, general-aviation manufacturers were turning out 15,000-plus airplanes a year, and pilots were training at a record rate. Practically everyone was predicting there would be a viable step-up market for new aviators transitioning to twins in search of the peak of the pyramid—an airline job.

Practically everyone was wrong. The big multi-engine training market never materialized, light-light sales foundered, and by 1982, all three companies had discontinued their multi-trainers. Piper would later revive the Seminole, but twin-engine training would never approach the level the industry aspired to in the late ’70s.

Today, very light jets (VLJs) are the new rage, but while the hype may, once again, exceed the reality, there’s good reason to believe this may not be a fad. Aspirants to the VLJ market hope thousands of high-end single owners, medium-twin drivers and turboprop operators will be willing to step up to jet power. All the proposed light jets are being designed for single-pilot operation in the 310- to 400-knot range with a pilot, and four to six passengers aboard for somewhere between $1.2 and $2.5 million. Currently, the least expensive jet on the market is the $4.2 million Cessna CitationJet.

These days, you could spend well over $1 million for a Piper Mirage or Beech 58 Baron. Turboprops such as the Piper Meridian, SOCATA TBM-700 and Pilatus PC-12 start just under $2 million and escalate to well over $3 million. The VLJs promise performance that’s 50 to 100 knots quicker than all the models above for the same or less money.

Microsoft millionaires Vern Raburn and Paul Allen have invested a reported $400 million developing the Eclipse 500, and no matter how talented the airplane, certification is still far from the horizon. Cessna may just wind up spending a similar amount on its own upcoming Mustang to compete for the VLJ dollar, but that airplane won’t be available until 2006 or later. Diamond Aircraft’s single-engine D-Jet as well as Honda’s unusual twin-pylon entry are definite threats from big companies, but with indefinite development and production schedules. Most recently, the Epic Twinjet was announced at NBAA 2004 and still is an unknown quantity. Meanwhile, other small jets such as the Avocet, the Maverick and the Safire apparently have fallen by the wayside.

Then there’s Rick Adam and the A700. Adam was born to an aviation family. A pilot for the last dozen years, Adam’s father was a career Air Force pilot, his mother was a private pilot, and he’s a West Point graduate and former NASA launch officer on the Apollo program. He’s also an executive with the investment firm Goldman Sachs (a major investor in Adam Air-craft) and, like Eclipse’s Vern Raburn, made his fortune in the computer world. Adam’s concept was a centerline thrust piston twin, the A500, and a follow-on, jet-powered A700 derived from the same design. Read More...]]>http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/aircraft/pilot-reports/adam-aircraft/adam-a700-first-of-the-microjets.html
Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0800